Developing treatment, treatment validation, and treatment scope in the setting of an autism clinical trial

The overall goal of this project is to conduct a therapeutic trial to assess the effect of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) vs. placebo treatment on the global severity, behavioral symptoms, and functional ability of child and adolescent autistic disorder in a 12-week double-blind placebo-controlled parallel study. It contains three separate projects: conducting a double blind clinical trial; developing analytical assays for lipid biomarkers; genotyping GSTM1*0 and several genes related to DHA metabolism and testing whether the gene variants correlate with response to DHA treatment.